In automotive upholstering, extensive use is made of means for stretching the fabric cover onto the seat padding, for example, the use of ties of all types, connected between given points of the fabric cover and anchoring points normally on rigid supporting structures, such as, for example, the supporting structure of the seat itself.
Currently used ties comprise a length of flexible cable such as, for example, stranded NYLON (registered trade mark) cable, fitted with one or more connecting or anchoring elements normally made of plastic.
In previous Italian Patent N. 1.188.146 issued on Dec. 30, 1987 and entitled: "Method and system for producing flexible ties with randomly arranged connecting elements", the present Applicant describes a tie fabricating method whereby a flexible cable, continuously unwound off a reel, is fed through a pair of half molds between which retaining elements, spaced a given distance apart, are injection molded directly onto the cable. After each molding operation, the cable is fed forward by an appropriate length and cut off. To reduce the length of the mold in relation to the length of the cable portion fed through it, blades are fitted inside cavities in one of the half molds to form loops in the cable and so enable a relatively long portion of cable to be accommodated in a very small space.
In the above method, the terminal retaining element on the tie is in the form of an eyelet, while the others formed along the cable portion are button-shaped, and a number of identical ties are fitted at different heights to a supporting rod along which the eyelet of each tie is manually positioned. The rod is made of metal or plastic, and is fitted inside a tubular fabric element stitched to the inside of the After being fitted through the thickness of the padding, the ties are tightly anchored to a convenient connecting point by means of one of the buttons, which differs from one tie to another depending on its location along the supporting rod. Any excess cable, together with the unused retaining elements, is either cut off at assembly or left under the padding, both of which solutions obviously involve a certain amount of waste.
Ties formed as described above present several drawbacks, foremost of which is the high cost of assembly, which must be performed entirely manually so as to slip the eyelets one at a time onto the supporting rod, and to feed the rod from one connecting position to the next inside the tubular fabric element, which must also be stitched beforehand to the fabric cover.
Moreover, the need, for reasons of standardization, for producing identical ties, only a small part of most of which is eventually used, results in relatively high cost in terms of waste, and fairly complex molding equipment is required, which means additional costs for producing the molds, and higher operating costs due to the additional maintenance involved.